


All The Comforts of Home

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1900188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder races against time and his own injuries to save Scully from a gruesome fate at the hands of a vicious killer. Written in 1997, revised 7/2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Trust me, THERE ARE NO TYPOS in this. Just intentional errors of the fingers. It'll make more sense as you go along. This one's a little weird, and not terribly straightforward--and I want you all to know that it's Summer and Vickie's fault. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, girls. I may not imitate well, but I'm definitely sincere.
> 
> Dedication: To Summer and Vickie, whose Open Book series is making my brain actually work for a change. You girls ever thought of going into neurology? And to the Genteel Ladies, a fine group of women who really know how to hurt a guy (as long as the guy is named Mulder ).

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> June 14`
> 
> `I had to threaten the guard to get this damn thing. Told him I'd tke off--shooting him in the process, if necesary--if I didn't have something to help me organise my thoughts.`
> 
> `I've never actually needed one before--something to orgamise my thoughts, that is--until now. Serious head trauma. Concussion. Thought I had a skull fracture for a while, but none of the damn tests they ran on me worked out that way.`
> 
> `Bad part is, when the guard told Skinner about my little outburst... He had them send Scully's powerbook up here. Told me that it would have everything I'd need--modem, word processor, uplink software for the bureau database...`
> 
> `Just serves to remind me that I should be out there looking for her, instead of cooped up here in this glorified prison cell.`
> 
> `I'll have to give Sknner his due, though. He hasn't let them keep me in the dark--I did that mysel just fine for the first two days. He knows that I'm the only one who knows Craddock well enough to find out where he's taken her.`
> 
> `I've lost too much time already. If I'd kept my eyes open in that warehouse, we'd never have to look for her at all.`
> 
> `Damnit. I'm rambling. The whole point of this thing is to get my thoughts  _organised!_`
> 
> ` Okay, it's June 14 now... So...`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 10` **
> 
> `Scully and I went looking for`
> 
> `Shit, forget that. I've got to start earlier...`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 5` **
> 
> `The 302 for these murders in Montana finally got cleared. I kind of stole the case from ISU and VICAP, but I  _knew_  this guy. I was pretty sure that he was the same one I'd lost track of in New York, six years ago--the fact that Willie sent me a copy of the report just solidfied it frme. Not an X-File. No way. Personal vendettta, and I knew it. I think Sculllly did too, but she went along with me.`
> 
> `No way. I am  _not_  getting another headache. I don't have the time! Okay, so, we head for Montana. Butte. Nice place, if you're not a pretty, single, professional woman--Craddock loves them. He loves them all to pieces--literally. I don't know what I was thinking when I brught Scully on the case. She's just the type he likes--all fire and power.`
> 
> `Shit! Okay, so, Butte. We talked to the Police Commisioner. Hildebrant. I'm in big trouble now. I actually had to look that one up in the files! Damnit. If I don't figure out what happened soon, she's dead`
> 
> `Hidlebrnt says he doesn't have a lot of clues--just some small pieces of cloth at the scens. Tested as generic polyester. Found anywhere. Including at all of Craddock's New York murder sites.`
> 
>  
> 
> `Scully and I go out to the latest crime scene, still fresh, and covered in spectators. I'm looking around like a maniac. Craddock likes to watch. He stashes the oman somewhere, then comes back and watch the police shuffle their feet.`
> 
> `He likes the chase--but only if he can win. We got close to him when I was working in the ISU--really close. And he just picked up his toys and went home. Disappeared into thin air.`
> 
>  
> 
> `I can't believe it's takn him six years to stat up again. I wonderr what he's been doing. Killing house cats, maybe?`
> 
> `Boggs. Luther Boggs. He killed because he liked it. Craddock's the same way. He just wants to play a game for a while. nd he always win--`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `I hate nurses. If I take the pain pils, I'll be worse off than before--and Craddock's going to start uping the ante here in a few. He's kept track of the news. He always does. He's goin to know what we're doing out here--what  _they're_  doing.`
> 
> `Maybe, if I'm lucky, he thinks I'm down for the count. The loclnews played up the injury of a federal officwer. I saw it. Makes it sound like i'm in a coma, and I'll be there fo a while.`
> 
> `That was Skinner's doing--or maybe WIlkins. He worked with me on this case in New York, and he's got a fair idea of how Cradock operates. He probaably wans Craddock to think that I won't be working on this one. Gives the bastard a little room to manuver. He'll like that. He'll take his time.`
> 
> `Craddock... WHen he killed his fourth c=victim in New York, he alreaady knew that the bureau was on to him. He sent us a lock of her hair, just like he'd done to the NYPD the three victims before her, twice a day... Until he ran out of it. Thenn, he started sending fingers. He was so hard to find. Ten fingers later, we'd thought we'd found him. Finally narrowed down the psot office that was sending the stuff.`
> 
> `The post office didn't recognise him, didn't recognise the adress. He'd been slipping them into the mail  _after_  it was sorted, using that post office's stamp to throw us off. That was how we found his name. He used to work for the USPS.`
> 
> `ANyway, Scully and I are looking at the crime scene, and I don't see Craddock anywherE. He probably already knew I was here. Or  _someone_  was here. Wilkins has been great about trying to convince Craddock that he needs to deal witht he bureau on this one. Sending out "leaks", just when we need them, making a play of this on the local news. The reporters are being really cooperativre. I thik they don't want Butte to become the "serial murderers paradise."`
> 
> `So Craddock didn't show, and, like the scenes in New York, we only found little... shavings, almost, of generic polyester. I don't know wat the hell he thinks those are. I can't seem to figure out the motive. They're obviously deliberatly put there. But, even six years ago, I never had any clue why.`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 6` **
> 
> `Scully stuck to the district office, runnign through the records of the city with Wilkins, while I tried to get a handle on anyhting the police might havce missed at the other crime scenes. Not much, though Craddock had been sloppy at the first one. Lost his edge, I guess. Well he's got it back big time now.`
> 
> `Another woman went missing. Sarah Joliett, 31, pharmacologist. He goes for medical personell. Another really good reason why I shouldn't have brought Scully with me. SHe's 5'4", thin, pretty. Long blonde hair and big blue eyes. I saw the picture of her, and immediately knew that Craddock knew ISU was on the case.`
> 
> `Jenny Bradford had been a 26 year old nursing assistant in Manhattan. She'd been his sixth victim there--the one we almost caught him on. She looked just like Joliett. He started sending fingers  _first_ witht that one. Then toes. Then... We found her two weeks after the kidnapping...`
> 
> `Wilkins flipped. He's always been pretty emotional, bt I remember clearly his reaction to the last three packages we received from Cradock in New York. Left arm first, at the elbow. Right arm at the shoulder... The last one sent him over the edge, and the guy sat int he bullpen bathroom cryig for an hour.`
> 
>  
> 
> `With Joliett, he was a little different. He got mad. Really mad. I don't think I've ever seen anyone deliberately put their fist through a plate glass window, and come out unharmed, but Willie did it. So the evening was spent trying to track down  _exactly_ where Joliett had been attacked. We retraced her steps, and it was Scully who found the presson nail. Willie found the picture. Craddock's changed. In New York, antyhting that mght have given us any  _valuable_ clues was always destoryed--t the point where he burned down one of his victim's houses. We figured he had left some fingerprints behind. But this picture was  _planted_  for us--just to let us know he knew we were there--in case his choice of victim hadn't said it already.`
> 
> `Sarah was beautiful--even witht he terror on her face, and the twine wrapped aroung her rigth wrist, that lashed her to the crates in the alley behind her, so that she seemed to be wavign at us. She looked like she was ready to kill him, or burst into tears. I wish she'd killed him then.`
> 
> `He didn't need to leave us more thna that. No fingerprints, of course. But honestly, since we already knew it was him, what was the point?`
> 
> `It was this day that I started thinking about asking Scully to go back to Washington--or at least to stay at the district HQ. I didn't actually  _adk_ that day, but I thought about.`
> 
> `I wish now that I'd done something.`

 

The nurse took one look at him, and frowned.

"Agent Mulder," she chided carefully. "You are supposed to be resting."

Mulder just stared at her, glad to see that there were only three of her now, where yesterday there had been six or seven. He'd been completely out of it for more than two days, and when he awoke, he hadn't been able to keep his eyes open for more than a few moments at a time.

"Agent Mulder..."

He looked briefly at the notebook computer before him, silently trying to reread the last few lines.

God, he hoped he was making sense--at least to himself. Craddock had too much of a jump on them for him to be laid up like this! He should have just refused to be cooped up here, and let Skinner and Wilkins handle the fallout.

_And drive myself right into a tree trying to take my first left,_  he thought morosely. The nurse was approaching with the pills, now, and, as much as he wanted to stay awake, to try to figure this out, he knew that he couldn't help Scully if he couldn't make sense of his own ramblings.

As the nurse left, all Mulder could think was that he just needed to make one more note--one more idea that rattled around in his bruised head needed to come out...

But he was asleep before he knew what that thought was.

 

 

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> June 15`
> 
> `I was finally  _forced_  to take a pain pill last night. Another 14 hurs gone. Wilkins was in here a while ago. No leads yet, and no new "clues" from Craddock. He'll be moving soon. It's been 5 days since Scully disappeared, adn I know Craddock is probably getting antsy. He hasn't been sending "parts" to the police before Joliett, but I think he's got it in for the ISU in general, so I'm expecting him to do something. I'm praying he'll start with the hair. She could always grow that back.`
> 
> **` JUNE 7` **
> 
> `We spent the seventh looking for any clue as to where Craddock might have taken Sarah. It was Scully who came up with the clue. It's funny. If she hadn't been here, we'd never have gotten Sarah Joliett back alive. And Matt Craddock would never have taken  _her_ in response.`
> 
> `Scully found a realty record of a house on the outskirts of town. Bought through a realtor in Manattan eight years ago. It was a slim lead, but we decided that it was the best we had.`
> 
> `John Milton (an alias if ever I heard one) had purchased the place. We faxed a copy of Craddock's mug shot over to the realty company in New York, but the agent who'd bought the property for him left the company three years ago. So, aagin, we were left with nothing.`
> 
> **` JUNE 8` **
> 
> `We went out to the house to check it out. Recently abandoned. He'd probably run out of there as fast as he could, once he found out that an agent from ISU had been brought in. And he left us a present. Sarah Joliett's shirt--too bloody for anyone's comfort. The blood type matched hers, and it was identified as hers by her mother, who hadn't been more than a few steps away from the nuthouse since her daughter was takn.`
> 
> `We let the tech guys go over the place, knowing they'd find nothing to help us--unless, of course, we found Craddock. Then the evidence in that house would make for some wonderful exhibits at the trial.`
> 
> `I actually did talk to Scully that day. I asked her if maybe she could accommpany the evidence back to D.C.--maybe grease the wheels with a few of her heart-breaking smiles. She saw right through it, of course.`
> 
> `"Muldr, I'm not leaving just because this case is disturbing," she said. "I may not have been wokring on this case as long as you have, but I'm just as deeply invested in it."`
> 
> `So I let it go. Scully, when I see you again, you are in for the biggest "I told you so" I can muster...`
> 
> `When I see you again.`

 

"Hey Mulder!"

Mulder winced at the sound, and sent Daniel Wilkins a glare that immediately lowered the young man's volume.

"Sorry, man." Wilkins took a chair beside the bed, watching as Mulder closed the powerbook that Skinner had finally agreed to send up to him. "How you doing?"

"We need to prod Craddock into some sort of action, Willie. He knows we're here--he knows who and what Scully is. This could be the greatest coup of his life!  _Why_  isn't he taking it?"

Wilkins watched Mulder's heart monitor step up it's beat.

"Relax, Spook, okay? You're not going to do your partner any good if you wind up stuck in here."

Mulder took a deep breath... another... When the monitor had calmed down, he finally looked back at Wilkins, blinking at intervals to try to separate the number of men he saw sitting in that single chair.

"I downloaded the files we have on Craddock from New York," he went on calmly. "He's not following his MO."

"We know that. He didn't say a word to the authorities until he found out the FBI was involved."

"But why?"

Wilkins shrugged angrily. "Maybe the chase we gave him in New York gave him a taste for the real thing. Maybe he  _wanted_  us to know he was still around." He summed up the man in the bed before him. "Look, Spook... Your partner's going to be okay. We'll find her. There are  _some_  parts of his MO that Craddock's still sticking to. We just have to find out why he's changed. Maybe that will give us enough to nail him."

Mulder closed his eyes wearily, not making the mistake of nodding his head. He was  _so_  tired.

He wondered briefly how tired Scully was.

"Look, I've got a meeting with the local press," Wilkins said, standing quietly. "We're still keeping quiet about you. Craddock always liked a lot of room to manouver."

"Yeah," Mulder agreed tiredly.

"Here's a copy of the press release," Wilkins said, dropping a single sheet of paper on Mulder's bedside table. He graced his old friend with a smile. "Read it when you're not seeing double, okay?"

Mulder gave a wry grin. "I'm seeing triple right now. Does that count?"

"Sure. It'll probably make as much sense to that half-baked brain of yours now as it ever would."

 

 

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> June 16`
> 
> `It's the 16th now, and Craddock has yet to make a move. And I'm still stuck in this goddamned hospital bed!`
> 
> `Willi sent out a press release last night, with a private note to the stations that tld them all to deal with it delicately. It's just enough to get him moving, we hope.`
> 
> `A federal agent was kidnapped in the attack which left another agent critically wounded (I wouldn't say "critically." I'm actually starting to think straight--which hopefully will help my typing abilities.) Scully was described as a "5'2" female, with red hair and blue eyes." She'd laugh at that. People like to say her eyes are blue, because red hair and blue eyes seem to go together. They're actually hazel. I've seen them when she's mad, and they look almost amber sometimes.`
> 
> `The release goes on to warn women to stay in their homes. If they must go ot, they should be with a male escort (though that didn't seem to do Scully much good). Willie also hinted that we might be getting close to the killer. No photographs. That was why Craddock went underground after Bradford. We don't-- _I_ don't--want to spook him. Just get him talking.`
> 
> `Skinner is trying to get them to release me. He showed up, so I'm told, the day they found me in that warehouse--almost twelve hours after the kidnapping. See, Scully? I'm careful not to say "abduction". You'll be proud of me for that when we get you back.`
> 
> `When  _they_  get you back. Anyway, Skinner's been here the whole time, and now he's trying to convince them that I'm perfectly safe working at a desk in the regional bureau office. I had  _another_  CAT scan this morning (don't they have enough pictures of my brain?), and it seemed to make the doctors happy. I'm not going to be happy until I have a chance to catch Craddock on my own.`
> 
> `I'm not sure how likely that will be. I've only just got to the point where I can see straight. I've had concussions before--that's part of why they're being so careful--but I'd always been able to take some downtime afterward--even if it was only because  _you_ forced me to.`
> 
> `We'll find you, Scully. It's a question of getting Craddock to show a few cards. He likes to play with the FBI...`
> 
> `God, that last sentence made me sick, suddenly. Skinner's here. Hopefully he bullied them into letting me out.`

 

Walter Skinner looked ready to explode even to Mulder's still-crossed eyes. The tall ex-marine managed to calm down long enough to take a good look at his agent.

"How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?"

"Better, sir," Mulder replied, careful not to let on that all six of the Skinners in front of him were dancing around in a way that the Assistant Director had probably never dreamed of.

Skinner saw right through him, of course. "Mulder, against my better judgement--and the better judgement of the staff at this hospital, they're releasing you tomorrow." He quelled Mulder's tentative grin with a scowl. "You are to plant yourself in the bureau headquarters, and you  _are not_  to leave there, unless authorised by me. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Skinner's eyes softened slightly, though the rest of him stayed as crabby as he could manage. "Have you come up with any ideas on where Craddock might have taken Agent Scully?"

"No, sir," Mulder replied dully. "We're trying to reassess his MO, given his actions during this current spree. We know he's latched on to the bureau, but we're not sure how we can use that to our advantage."

Skinner looked at him closely, giving Mulder an errie feeling that the AD knew exactly what he was thinking. "Mulder, you so much as breathe wrong, and you're back in this hospital, do you hear me?" He softened again. "You're not going to do Scully any good if you end up falling victim to this injury."

"Yes, sir," Mulder said, as Skinner nodded and made his way out. He wondered how many more people were going to throw the words "you're not going to help Scully if" at him.

He wondered if he had enough bullets in his clip for all of them.

 

> _` Field Journal  
> June 16 (continued)` _
> 
> `Yep. I'm out tomorrow morning. You should have seen Skinner when he came in, Scully. I'm always a little afraid that that vein in the right side of his forehead, you know the one? I'm afraid that it'll blow, and he'll bleed out right in front of me.`
> 
> `So, I now have seventeen hours to pull things together. Willie's going to pick me up on his way into the office. I think Skinner's getting ready to go home. Doesn't want to let  _them_  know how much trouble we cause him.`
> 
> `He's worried about you, Scully. Keep that in mind. He's still not living with his wife, you know...`
> 
> `All right. I need to recreate the chain of events here. I'm praying that the headache I have doesn't get any worse. This nurse seems to sense when they get bad, and I don't think she'll let me beg off the pills this time--it my be he las chnce to blly`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 9` **
> 
> `We got a "present" from Craddock. Hair, thankfully. One long, silky bunch of it, blonde as cornsilk. He sent along a computer-generated note, too. Different for him. I'm not sure what he's up to with this spree. NY was pretty predictable, but now...?`
> 
> `Anyway, the note said "Who's there?" Willie wanted to leak my name to the press, just to let Craddock know that he was dealing with the same guys. We had this prick of a reporter in NY, who was finally able to get my name out of somebody, as the profiler on the case, and it was in the newspapers before the next morning. Craddock knows me...`
> 
> `Shit! Maybe Craddock's being so quiet because he  _does_ think I'm out of it!`

 

Mulder almost split his head open (figuratively speaking) grabbing for the phone. He relied on touch to dial the number, keeping his eyes closed against the dancing visions before them.

"Wilkins," the man on the other end stated sleepily.

_Damn,_  Mulder thought suddenly.  _What time is it?_  He looked at the clock, surprised to find that it was now eleven-thirty at night. Where had all that time gone? He'd started writing on Scully's computer as soon as Skinner left, and that had been six-fifteen...

He looked up at the table before him, and saw the dinner tray. He'd fallen asleep at some point in there. Damnit! He didn't have time for this concussion!

"Wilkins," Willie repeated angrily.

"Oh, sorry, Willie," Mulder replied, closing his eyes again as he spoke. "Listen. I think it's been a mistake to keep quiet about my condition."

"What do you mean?"

"He wants to play with  _us,_  Willie," Mulder said, a sick image once again coming to his mind. He pushed it and the nausea it caused away, and forged ahead. "He thinks that Scully and I were sent by ISU. He wants to play the same old game."

"Mulder," Wilkins began carefully. "Look, you just took a huge crack to the head... You're vulnerable, pal. If he knows you're awake, he might--"

"Actually open up a dialogue with us," Mulder completed angrily. "Damnit, Willie! This has  _got_  to be what he's waiting for!"

Two monitors chose that moment to start beeping at him--a warning to cool it before the nurses came to drug him back into oblivion--and maybe ensure that he  _didn't_  get out of here tomorrow...

He took a deep breath, fighting the on-coming headache. "Look, Wilkins, please. Just talk to Skinner about it, okay? Tell him what I told you... It might make sense to him."

 

 

> `Called Willie and Skinner. They don't like it, but they're going to leak the news that I'm conscious. Too bad I haven't been able to use this head start to best advantage, but I need him to make a move. We know he won't go back to that house, and the warehouse was thoroughly searched...`
> 
> `Come on, Craddock. Move. Send me one little clue. All I need is a scent, and I'll hunt you down, you bastard. And if you've done to her what you did to Bradford...`
> 
> `Damnit....`
> 
> `Anyway, getting on with what happened on the 9th...`
> 
> `So Craddock had sent the package through a contracting company here in town. Butte isn't his place, so I guess this was the best he could come up with. And it gave us something.`
> 
> `The Hibble Group is the fastest growing contracting company in Montana. They have six offices in Butte alone. But only one with the postage code on this package.`
> 
> `Unfortunately, the secretary in the main office told us that there was a private mailing area set up for the employees. Apparently, the company gives its employees free reign of the postage meters. So we decided to look through the employee records. No Milton. No Craddock...`
> 
> `We looked at the meter area, where employees are supposed to write down their postage--just so the company can keep track--but, of course, he never wrote anything down.`
> 
> `I tried so hard that evening to figure out where he was coming from. It isn't that I think I'm clairvoyant, or anything, it's just that I'm usually so good at figuring these things out.`
> 
> `I knew he had to have some connection to the company. It was his way to use the resources he had, not tap others. That's why he only killed in the houses he owned, he only used the postal service he worked for to mess with the packages he sent...`
> 
> `It took me a long time to think that maybe he worked for a company that  _worked_  for the Hibble Group. And that was Scully's fault. I guess I woke her up at about two in the morning--she could hear me bitching through the wall. So, she came over and we tried to hash the thing out.`
> 
> `Scully, I swear I will never whine about your need to look for easy solutions again. This one was perfect.`
> 
> `I just wish you could have given me the idea via a phone call from D.C.`

 

_June 17_

"Okay, you're sprung." Wilkins didn't look happy about it at all, but he helped Mulder grab his overnight, and took him out to his car.

"You'll be staying at my house for the duration, Spooky."

"I can't ask Jessie to--"

Wilkins speared him with a look. "That's not a request, Spook. It's an order--from Skinner."

Mulder sat silently for a while, thinking things over.

"I think Scully had the right idea about Craddock's comfort factor," he said finally. "If we can just try to find out where he'd feel comfortable here. Check each place out, one by one--"

" _We_  are not doing anything, Mulder!" Wilkins exploded suddenly. "You set foot outside the Bureau office and, so help me God, I'll have you back in that hospital and  _strapped down_  so fast, it'll make your head spin!"

Mulder was taken aback by this unusual display of anger. Willie had always been a gentle guy, not one to be prone to outbursts like that. "Okay," he agreed quietly. "So,  _you'll_  check them out."

Wilkins took a deep breath, letting it out with a "whoosh".

"I'm sorry, Spook. It's just this damn case." Mulder just sat, waiting for him to continue. "You know, Craddock was the reason I pulled for this assignment."

Mulder almost smiled. "The quiet life?"

"The life where psychos like him don't come and murder innocent women, yes." Wilkins shot his friend a look, immediately apologetic. "I'm sorry, Mulder. Honestly. Look, the reason we're all being so hard-assed is because you're not going--"

"--to be able to help Scully if I wind up back in the hospital," Mulder finished with a sigh. "God, I'm tired of hearing that."

"Then be good, and we'll stop saying it."

 

 

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> June 17`
> 
> `I'm finally set up at the HQ. Willie's keeping too close an eye on me for my comfort, but I guess he's doing it because he cares. He's a nice guy--right where I would have been if I hadn't started in on the X-Files.`
> 
> `Where you'd probably be if you hadn't joined me, Scully. See, you should have just gotten into active duty some other way.`
> 
> `Course, if you'd stayed at Quantico, you'd never have been put in a position like this at all.`
> 
> `Headaches are back with a vengence. Willie came in here earlier and asked if I'd taken anything. Of course I haven't. He gave me regular old aspirin--or Ibuprofen, whatever--and that's taken a little bit of the edge off. Those pain pills they prescribed for me are out, though. No way am I missing anymore time.`
> 
> `The leak went out today. Just saying that the injured federal agent was being debriefed by Butte's regional bureau. Maybe Craddock will make a move now. God, he has to move soon. This is the longest he's ever had someone before...`
> 
> `He  _has_  to move.`

 

_5:45 PM_

"Agent Mulder?"

Mulder looked up into the face of his superior, and was instantly on his feet.

"We need you in the briefing room."

Mulder tried to will his hands not to shake as he followed Skinner down the hall. Something had happened. Craddock had finally picked up the phone, so to speak.

_God, Scully,_  Mulder thought silently.  _Please be okay._

 

> `Move made.`
> 
> `I've been threatened with another stay in the hospital if I can't hold it together, but I'm about ready to explode. God, I wish they'd let me go for a run--wish I had the strength...`
> 
> `Fingernail. Almost transparent brown polish... It's from her pinky--right pinky, the lab guys think. Jesus.`
> 
> `He's starting with just enough to get us mad--to stop us from thinking straight. I can't let him do that. Willie is holding together all right, but I think that's more for my benefit. His temper's really gotten out of control the last few years. He's going to sever an artery if he keeps taking it out on the windows.`
> 
> `Funny, he wasn't like this when he was younger. He was a lot more level-headed. I guess I'll have to be the level-headed one this time, eh, Scully? Makes for an interesting change.`
> 
> `Craddock added a note to his present, the computer paper well-dabbed with blood. The lab guys are typing it--like that matters. It's got to be Scully's.`
> 
> `I can't lose it--not even a little bit. If Willie or Skinner--who's still here, by the way--even  _think_ that I'm going to go off half-cocked, they'll throw me right back into the University Hospital. Not sure I don't belong there anyway. These headaches are pretty bad.`
> 
> `Why don't my post-concussion headaches hurt so much when you're around? You'd think they'd hurt more, what with all the lecturing you do.`
> 
> `I could use a lecture right now, Scully. Honestly. Pick a topic and I'll just sit here and take it, okay?`
> 
> `Anything you want...`
> 
>  
> 
> `All right, so, we are now down to the most important day--the day I remember least.`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 10` **
> 
> `Scully's big idea turned into a way to save Sarah Joliett. We searched the records for the supply companies that worked with the Hibble Group, and came up with Craddock--or Milton, if you asked the Millworks Inc. people.`
> 
> `Millworks has a warehouse just outside of town, and Scully and I went out to see what we could find. We weren't looking for Craddock, you understand. Just looking for information.`
> 
> `He was actually there! On shift! I couldn't believe that he hadn't bothered to disappear from here, just on the off chance that a brilliant young woman from the bureau might figure him out. When he saw us, he ran...`
> 
> `And that's all I remember. I can't remember what happened in the warehouse itself, how I managed to get thrown off of a fifteen foot tall roof, twelve miles from that warehouse, how Craddock ever managed to get away with Scully.`
> 
> `We've pieced together this much. Apparently, Craddock went looking for his comfort factor again. Scully and I must have trailed him back to the older warehouse that Millworks had in the area. When the Butte bureau finally tracked us, they found me on the ground outside the building, and Sarah Joliett stuffed in a locker inside.`
> 
> `She's doing okay, I hear. Except for her hand. He'd been ready to send us another package... The doctors say she'll use it again, but it'll be hard to write without an index finger...`
> 
> `Shit! I swear, I've tried my hardest to remember. But concussions just don't work that way. I'm missing most of the afternoon before my injury.`
> 
> `The last thing I remember clearly is Scully and me getting into the rental to head out to the warehouse.`
> 
> `She was talking about the profile I'd done on Craddock--how the very fact that he always stuck to his own stomping grounds should actually have made him easy to find. He dumped the bodies elsewhere, but he always took care of his business at home.`
> 
> `Oh shit, Scully! What if--`

 

_7:30 PM_

"Willie, I think I've got something."

Wilkins turned to Mulder as the older agent approached, immediately alert. "What?"

"Scully's right about him. Craddock's going to stick with Millworks. It's the place he knows best here." He brought the map he'd been trailing up onto the desk. "I called them. They only have one disused warehouse within the city limits--other than the one you guys found Joliett at."

"But how do we know he'll stay in Butte?" Wilkins asked, studying the map carefully.

"He's a creature of habit, Willie," Mulder said coldly. "No matter what's changed about him, he's still going to go for the places he knows."

 

> `God. I think I've found him. Another warehouse--this one on the other side of town. Scully--you managed to find yourself, partner. He  _is_  sticking to his own stomping grounds. It'll take a while to get there (thank God this didn't happen in December), but that's got to be where he's got you. Skinner's trying to keep me from going--citing the injury, my personal involvement. I really wanted to tell him to shove it, Scully, but I just haven't got the time. I'm coming, whether I go with the taskforce or not. Just hang on, okay? We'll be there.`
> 
>  
> 
> `I don't care what the rules are about assaulting a suspect, Scully. Craddock's dead the second I find him.`
> 
> `We got back into the bureau last night, empty-handed--and another package was waiting for us. I didn't even want to be in the room when they opened it, but I had to stay.`
> 
> `Another fingernail. Another blood-stained note.`
> 
> `"Where am I?"`
> 
> `What an asshole! This one's from the right hand again, they think. Index finger. Same polish--yours. It's you, Scully, and I'm still no closer to finding you!`
> 
> `Willie's being removed from the case. I think Skinner'd like to do the same to me, but he knows I'd take off and find you on my own if he did.`
> 
> `Willie... sort of lost it, Scully. I guess from what I told you about him back in D.C. that you'll be shocked by that. He  _is_  a very smart, very competent young man. I had a long talk with him as they were stitching up his hand (seventeen stitches, one broken bone--couldn't find a window, so he used a handy wall). I guess that case in New York never left him. He's had nightmares about Jenny Bradford for years. He's staying home today, probably driving his wife Jessie nuts.`
> 
> `The last present we got from Matt Craddock in New York was a package that contained Jenny Bradford's head. No note, no goodbye, just the severed head of one of the cutest young women you'd ever want to see.`
> 
> `I can't let that happen to you, Scully. I have to try to find  _something_ that can tell me where you've gone. He's egging me on. I can feel it. If I could just figure out what he wants from me, maybe I could find out where you are.`
> 
>  
> 
> `Okay, why don't I go back to the profile. It worked for you. Maybe it'll work for me, too.`
> 
> `There had already been three deaths before the bureau was called in in New York. The profile of the killer suggested that he was most likely a male, aged thirty to forty-five, who worked in a service industry. He had a deep-seated, if poorly-formed, distrust of women--particularly those in power--hence the choice of his victims.`
> 
> `He was a creature of habit. Everything about him said it. His knife strokes were uniform, his presentation of the body parts was consistent. He was a butcher who didn't quite know how to go about carving up a human body, but kept to the strokes he knew.`
> 
> `Now, in Montana...`
> 
> `The first two victims were kidnapped and dismembered without any conversations with the local police force. This is a deviation from his MO in New York. There, he started with locks of hair, then digits, then--and only when the bureau had become involved and he was front-page news--larger body parts.`
> 
> `He seemed to warm up to the game during the spree in New York. At first, it was hesitant--with the first victim, he never progressed past locks of hair before he dumped the body. By the time Bradford came along...`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `Okay, so he's escalated to a real player now. He murders with the exact same precision that he showed in NY, presents the bodies in the same way. He's waiting for the bureau to figure out that it's him. Once we're out here, he picks a victim who looks a lot like his last NY victim, and leaves us a few clues to let us know that  _he_  knows we're here.`
> 
> `He starts with clohting, this time. Not bdy parts or locks of hair. Why?`
> 
> `Damnit, Sclly! Why did he start so small this time?`
> 
> `Was he oing to go nine innings with us? You and I just screwed it up by coming after him too soon?`
> 
> `If so, why hasn't he just killed Scully and disappeared again? He's not a guilty man. He's not feeling any guilt here, not trying to get caught...`
> 
> `What the hell is the motive here? Revenge? Is he getting back at us because we got so close to catching him last time?`
> 
> `Damnit, Scully, why aren't you here to help me figure this out?`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `I've taken a look at the interviews they conductsd at Millworks. Cradock was apparently seen as kind of a strange s=character. Kept mostly to himself. Pretty much what the postal wokrers in New york said about him.`
> 
> `He'd been working a lot of shifts lately. Trying to put in some overwtime. That has me thinking... was he planning on moving on? Play another round witht he zFBI, and then disappear again?`
> 
> `Myabe. All I know is that he's still here Scu.ly. He's keeping you in the city. One thing I reeally notice dabout him in New yOrk is that he likes to make us look like idiots. What better way then to hide in plain sihgt, begging us to fidn him?`
> 
> `My head;s killing me. I'm goingto take another look at the files, and see what I can come up with. Nobody at Milllowrks knew him well enough to tell the police what he did ouutside of work.`
> 
> `WHere's his comfort zone here, Scully? WHere is he ging to feel safe?`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `Matthew Craddock never worte a leter to the NYPD when he was kiling there. His packages always did the talking for him. Is he having some sort of trouble here? Or did we just scare him so bad in NY htat he's tryign to get back at us. Trying t o ge u s back for ruingin his wokr there?`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `He neveer left the service industries. Here,m he's a warehouse worker, in NY he was a postal oficer. WHy? Is it hte only way he casn make contact? I foudn a stray comment of mine in the orignal profiel: "Teh sujet is an isolated, possibly painfully shy man. He may feel theat the only way for him to make contcat wiht what he sees as an unforgiving world is to confront htat world head on. HE feels hat the world somehow owes him something." HE's dismmemebring society when he dismembers these women. Mayeb he feels that by taking a bureu agent--by dismembring _her,_  he can somehwo make us pay him back for the injustices he feels he's suffered at our hands. Maybe he's tryingt o communicate, buthe doens't knwo how to interact wiht us except through open threats.`
> 
> `No, he  _is_  playing iwth us. He's tryingt o goad us into making some sort of move. But what? Could eh wna tus to make him even bigger news than he is? DOes he want to be recognised for all ofthisz? We put his picture out on the wir during the nY case, adn htat was what eventualyl cause dhim to run. If we did that nwo, woudl he do the same thing? woudl he try to disappera, taking Scullt with him, or would eh simply send us pacages like the one that he sne tiwth bRadford? If he did,a dn he disapperaed, we'd never find him. He's tto goo d at coveirng his trackas. HE'd just diapsper for anothr six or esven years, and ew'd have to lolok for him all over again.`
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> `Scully,d why did he wait so long this time? IS it just tht he coouldn't hold it in anymore? I remebre we had this one profier when I was at ISU, andhe sadi that all repeat mruderers have to murder again. It's like a predestined encoding. They  _have_  to. If cradock is liek that, then how could he wait this long berfore starign up again? Has he been kiling before this, adn we just never connected it together? I can'timagien, in this day and age, someone like him being able to simply slip through the caracks and mureder at weill as he made his way acros the country. Somethign stoped him. I've checked all thepenal records fort eh last five years, adn eh wasn't in jail. ZAs fara s our recprsd show, he hasn't been married. So whrer has he been ? Icheceked his insurance forms at Milowrks, and he sid'nt report any medical problems,. I'm havign a searchr un on mdeical recorsd from here to Ny , and they haven't come up wiht anything, so I don't htink ehs' been in the hospital for the last few years. Scully, help me out here. I don't know why he;''s changed, and I don't know where he's takwnn you, and I'm afraisd that the fact hat I can't even think straight is going to let him gert awty wiht this! I iwhs I coudlt talk to yoi. I wihs you coudl help me figu`

 

"Agent Mulder. You're done for the day." Skinner watched as Mulder looked up from the computer before him, taking a minute to focus his eyes.

"I just need to check over a few more things, sir," Mulder replied, a desperation to his voice that Skinner didn't like the sound of. "I think I might have an idea of why Craddock's changed his MO." He continued talking, getting to his feet and weaving slightly as he made his way over to the filing cabinet.

"If we scared him badly enough in New York, maybe we made him mad, maybe--"

"Agent Mulder!" Skinner's sharp rebuke was enough to stop the young man in his tracks. His superior softened suddenly. "How long has it been since you ate, Mulder?"

Mulder shook that off, looking at the twenty or so sets of feet that he could see himself standing on. He felt Skinner come up to him.

"I'm going to drop you off at Wilkins' house."

"No sir," Mulder replied, backing off slightly. "With what Willie did to his hand yesterday, Jessie's going to have enough to deal with, and I don't want--"

"This isn't a request, Agent Mulder," Skinner cut in coldly. "I'm taking you over there. You'll get some food, and some rest, or you  _won't_  be back here tomorrow."

Mulder stared at him angrily for a moment--content just to glare, regardless of the fact that he had no idea  _what_  he might be glaring at. His head was going to explode soon. He knew it. Like that little vein he'd always wondered about in the man before him. He was just going to explode and bleed out in front of the world.

"Come on, Mulder."

"There's a hotel just down the street," Mulder persisted. "When I'm done here, I can just crash there. I'll stay there the entire time."

Skinner almost laughed at that. "Mulder," he began again, softly this time. "You need to rest. You need to  _eat._  And at Wilkins' house--"

"You can have somebody keep an eye on me," Mulder finished angrily. "Sir, I couldn't run off alone now if I tried! I don't know  _where_  to  _look!_ "

"And if you don't get some sleep," Skinner reasoned, "you're never going to--"

Mulder backed up again, looking like a trapped animal. He couldn't hear that phrase again. His face was starting to get a bit too red for Skinner's liking. The larger man tried to get ready, should Mulder collapse in front of him, as he seemed all too likely to do.

Mulder took a deep breath,  _trying_  to sound as reasonable as Skinner had. "Sir, as I said, I think I'm close to finding out why Craddock's changed. If I could just have a few more hours..."

"No." Skinner was  _not_  going to let the one man who had a chance of finding Scully work himself to death. "Mulder, we know she's still alive. He isn't going to kill her until he's finished playing the game. And you seem to be the  _key_  to that game. If you work yourself back into the hospital, he's not going to have an opponent--and then..."

"He won't want to play the game at all," Mulder finished miserably. He nodded, exhausted now, and went about getting his files in order before he left.

He knew that it was a bad idea to lean over to get the powerbook almost before he'd done it. Almost was too late, of course, and as his vision greyed out, he felt himself falling gently forward.

When his nose connected with the desk before him, it was anything but gentle, as the impact drove stars into his eyes. But it wasn't until he slid back, smacking his skull into the solid wooden chair behind him, that his head finally did what it had been threatening for the past two days. It exploded. Violently, painfully--

Mulder's final thought might have struck him as funny at any other time...

_That's going to make a hell of a mess._


	2. Chapter 2

As he shouted for an ambulance, Skinner supressed his worry about the amount of blood that now covered the younger man's face. There were no cuts, aside from a small one over his left eye, and a big nose simply meant a big nosebleed.

He felt for a pulse--purely on instinct--and found a race horse where the unconscious man's heart should be.

If Mulder was truly out of it this time...

Skinner shoved that thought to the back of his mind, as he heard the ambulance arrive on the street below.

* * *

Dana Scully had decided that she couldn't really be here. Not one to hide from reality, she did it now, closing into herself, so that she barely felt the pain this man inflicted, barely heard his almost frenzied mutterings.

She was going to stay where it was safe, until someone came and got her. There was a part of her mind that screamed at her to try to save herself, but she staunchly ignored it. There was simply too much pain involved in trying to get away. Too much pain in staying...

So she left, in the only way that she could.

As Craddock approached, a frighteningly large knife in his hand, that screaming little part of her mind tried to tell her that there was something strange here. Something she had noticed before, before the fear and the pain and the fatigue took over and drove her back into the darkness.

There was something strange here, and the voice tried to tell her that it might be her way out, but she wouldn't listen. She  _had_  a way out. It was simple, and painless...

And as she felt her hands being cut free, and felt the man bringing her right one to rest on a crate before her, Dana Scully shrank back into her mind, leaving her body to fend for itself.

And Matthew Craddock was far too insane to notice...

* * *

Mulder couldn't believe that his head could possibly hurt this badly. It should have been better after it exploded, right?

He risked opening his eyes, just a slit, and found Daniel Wilkins sitting in a chair beside the bed, his broken hand propped up as he plowed through the latest in the long line of mystery novels that he'd been addicted to for as long as Mulder had known him.

"The butler did it," Mulder joked weakly.

Wilkins put down the book, propping his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. "There  _is_  no butler in this one, Mulder," he returned with a smile. "I think it was probably the truck driver."

Mulder tried not to shrug. "Same thing." He took a deep breath, hissing slightly at the pain in his head. "What's going on?"

An angry look flashed over Wilkins' face as he sat straighter. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Skinner took me off the case, Mulder," he returned coldly. "He's keeping me in the dark as much as you."

"Where is he?"

"At headquarters. He came in a while ago to tell me that he's calling in another ASAC from Washington. He's heading back there tonight."

Mulder tried unsuccessfully to pull himself into a seated position. Apparently, that first explosion in his head wasn't to be the last, and he was seriously close to another. He stopped moving for a moment, and gathered his thoughts.

"I need to talk to him."

Wilkins shook his head. "No way, Mulder. You scared the hell out of everybody when you collapsed yesterday, and Skinner's ordered that you be kept in the dark on this one."

Mulder sat up now, angrily ignoring the pain that shot straight through his skull and down to his toes. "He can't do that! Craddock's been dealing with  _me!_  If he thinks I'm not around anymore, he'll--"

"You don't have a choice, Spook!" Wilkins almost yelled, cutting across Mulder's outrage. "He's not going to let you talk to anyone. Period. You are out of this investigation!"

Mulder hadn't thought it would be so hard to get out of bed, but he found himself slipping to the floor almost immediately. Wilkins all but picked him up and threw him back under the covers before he pressed the nurses' button.

"Spook," Wilkins said quietly, as he waited for the nurse to arrive, "the doctor has already given orders that you're to be sedated if you can't keep calm. I  _told_ Skinner that you'd throw a fit when you heard the news, but, quite honestly, I think he's a lot more worried about finding Scully than he is about you getting angry."

"He's never going to find her without my help," Mulder protested weakly. "Craddock's going to know that the game is over, and he's going to kill her."

He could see in Wilkins' eyes that the younger man knew he was right. But it didn't stop him from holding Mulder down as the nurse pumped fourteen hour's worth of sedative into his system.

"I have to know what's going on, Willie," Mulder pleaded, trying to hold on to his anger as the drugs began stealing it away. "I need to..."

His last request unfinished, Fox Mulder coasted painfully into oblivion.

* * *

 

_JUNE 19_

Oblivion was the one place that Dana Scully dearly wanted to be. Craddock had pulled her viciously back into the world, screaming at her to give him answers about what she thought the FBI might do. How would they try to find him? What did their profile say about him? What did they know about him?

She couldn't have answered the questions if she wanted to. Her hand still bled every time he pulled at her, the wounds never having a chance to start to heal before he was at her again. He hit her--a pain that at least made her forget about the infections that itched at her fingertips--and the pain in her head kept her from focusing on what he was saying to her.

"What do they know!" he screamed again, pulling at her arm, making her bleed... making her angry.

"I don't know what they know!" she screamed back, her voice rusty and cold. "I don't know!"

Craddock let go of her, beginning that frantic pacing of his that worried her so. He was crazy. Of course, any killer was crazy when you came down to it, but he was crazier than most. This wasn't the kind of tortured insanity of someone like Gerry Schnauz, or the blank sociopathy of Donnie Pfaster. This was psychosis--full-blown and deadly.

And Scully was sure she didn't have the strength to deal with it.

But she tried. "What do you want?"

Craddock turned on her, his greasy red hair flopping angrily into his eyes. "I want to know what they know, lady," he gritted coldly. "I  _need_  to know what they know."

She tried to process his words. There was more to what he was saying than a simple request for information... She tried desperately to understand what he wanted...

And in the end, as he came at her again with the knife, all she could do was hope that the Bureau indeed knew  _something..._

* * *

He could hear voices muttering, somewhere beyond the bed, and Mulder tried to understand what they were saying, trying to push beyond the haze and the pain, in hopes of finding out what was going on.

"Forensics has finished with it."

Was that Skinner's voice? He was supposed to be back in Washington.

Willie's voice was immediately recognisable--and so was the anger in it. "You're not going to tell him?"

"What could he do, Agent Wilkins? ...He's not in any shape to deal with this right now. If we're lucky, we'll find her."

"How?"

Skinner betrayed his first bit of frustration. "I don't know. Berliss is in from ISU now. He's been studying the case since we brought Mulder back to the hospital. He thinks he might have a lead."

"Sir, with all due respect, we haven't had a lead in this case since Scully disappeared. Mulder was trying--I know he was--but Craddock's just gone."

"Mulder was having a search run on hospital records that might be able to lead us to Craddock--"

"What do hospital records have to do with it?"

"According to his field notes, Mulder was wondering why Craddock's taken so long to start killing again. Berliss said he's found something..."

Skinner's voice broke off as Mulder groaned slightly. He hadn't meant to, but he'd moved his head, trying to listen to the conversation. It was like having a dump truck crushing his brain.

"I'll keep you informed, Agent Wilkins," the AD stated curtly. "Just don't let him ask too many questions."

"Yes, sir."

Mulder didn't think he'd ever heard such a disingenuous response, but he kept the comment to himself as he heard the hospital room door open and the Assistant Director's footsteps retreating.

Again, opening his eyes was painful. The light in the room had been dimmed to bare minimum, but it was still enough to start his head pounding.

"Hey, Mulder," Wilkins offered quietly.

"What happened?"

Willie affected a look of confusion, which only fueled Mulder's anger. "Skinner was just here," he gritted furiously. "Craddock sent us another package, didn't he?"

"Listen, Spook, I told you--"

"What did he send?"

Mulder watched as Wilkins fought with himself, his own anger at being ordered to keep silent warring with what he knew would be in the best interest of the injured man before him. In the end, he chose to tell half the truth.

"Skinner's got Berliss on the case. He flew in from Washington today."

Mulder wasn't buying it. "So why is Skinner still here?"

"He wanted to stay until the new team was in place." It was a bad lie; hesistant, superficial, and altogether unbelievable.

"What did Craddock send us?" Mulder asked deliberately.

Willie's fake shrug sent a chill down Mulder's spine. "More of the same."

 _Oh God..._  Mulder tried to supress the urge to leap out of bed and strangle his fellow agent. What had Craddock done to her? What was it? An arm? A leg...

"Willie..."

"Look, Spook," Wilkins said gently. "They're taking care of it." His anger flared briefly. "You think I wouldn't tell you if--"

"--I don't know, Willie. Would you?" Mulder's eyes narrowed. "You haven't been keep out of the loop on this one at all, have you?" he accused coldly. "That was just a convenient way of getting out of telling me what's going on."

Wilkins balled his fists in anger. "Mulder... It's better that you don't get excited right now."

Mulder actually managed a laugh at that. " _This_  is not getting excited? Damnit, Willie, she's my partner! I have a right to know what happened!"

"She's not dead," Willie broke in immediately. "We're pretty sure she's alive."

Mulder closed his eyes at the other agent's tentative answer.  _Pretty sure..._  "So what was in the package?" he asked again, slowly and quietly.

Wilkins turned away suddenly, heading for the door. "I'll be right back."

"Damnit, WILLIE!" Mulder tried to lunge for the younger man, but he found that his head exploded when he moved that fast. By the time Willie returned--with nurse in tow--Mulder's eyesight had begun to clear again.

But not fast enough for him to stop the nurse from dumping a syringe of clear liquid into the IV that they had hung for him sometime during his sleep. He felt his anger melting away as that familiar wash of valium-induced calm came over him.

Wilkins waited a moment, until even the fury in Mulder's eyes had dissipated. When he spoke, it was with a quiet, reasonable, frightened tone--a tone Mulder recalled from his many trips to see the loved ones of kidnap victims. He'd used it himself just a couple of weeks ago on Sarah Joliett's mother.

"Craddock sent a package last night," Wilkins was saying. "It came with a note that said 'Where's my partner?'" He took a deep breath that came close to breaking Mulder's heart. The next words sent the injured man plummeting.

"He sent us her hand..."

* * *

_June 20_

Mulder couldn't wake up. He tried--tried to figure out where he was, why he was there, what was happening. He tried to open his eyes...

"He's out of danger for now, Mr. Skinner..."

Skinner was  _still_  here. So they hadn't found her yet...

"You know we never wanted to agree to releasing him the first time." Cranky doctor, Mulder thought muzzily. Why was he in the hospital again? "We  _will_  be keeping him here until  _we_  feel he's recovered enough to be released."

"I understand, Doctor. When will he be conscious so we can talk to him?"

The doctor sniffed self-importantly. "I had him sedated this morning, but it should be wearing off soon. I urge you not to upset him in any way, Mr. Skinner. The head wound and subsequent trauma could still cause a tremendous amount of damage."

 _Head wound and subsequent trauma?_  Mulder puzzled through that, his memory filling in the blanks slowly as the sedative worked its way out of his system. By the time he was clear on the events of the last few days, he began to get mad, his mind fighting the drugs in an attempt to convey his anger.

"Sir?" he called tentatively, opening his eyes a crack as Skinner appraoched the bed.

"Agent Mulder," he said quietly. "Good to see you awake."

Mulder held his tongue until the doctor had left the room. When he spoke, the barely-contained anger in his voice was enough to make Skinner take a step back. "What's happening with the investigation?"

"Craddock stopped sending us packages the day you were readmitted," Skinner replied carefully, watching with strange interest as Mulder's eyes widened.

"But the package yesterday...?" He trailed off at the concerned look on his superior's face.

"Agent Mulder..." Skinner began quietly. "You've been unconscious for two days now. They sedated you this morning to give you a chance to rest."

Mulder stared through him for a moment, trying to separate his own thoughts. "Willie was in here, standing guard."

Skinner smiled slightly. "Not standing guard, Agent Mulder... Keeping an eye out."

Mulder was too confused suddenly, and the monitors around him showed it. Skinner stepped back as a young nurse came running. She took one look at Mulder as she entered, and slowed her pace.

"Mr. Mulder, are you all right?"

"Scully's hand..." Mulder whispered quietly, trying to piece things together. "Willie told me he sent us..."

Skinner's jaw tightened at the utterance, but the nurse moved forward, a gentle smile on her face. "When do you remember that happening, Mr. Mulder?"

Mulder shook his head slightly, wincing as it throbbed.

The nurse nodded, turning to Skinner, who now stood just inside the door. "It's okay," she assured him, meeting Mulder's eyes across the room. "When he began to wake early this morning, he was having some sort of nightmare. That was why we sedated him," she explained with a shrug, watching Mulder's eyes close in relief. "It was better to get him out of it with sedatives than to wake him up."

"He hasn't sent us any packages, Mulder," Skinner said firmly, approaching the bed again. "He hasn't done  _anything_  in two days."

Mulder nodded briefly, as a sigh escaped him. He took a moment before opening his eyes again. "Have you made any progress?"

The vein began to pulse in Skinner's forehead. "Nothing. We've searched every warehouse remotely connected to Millworks."

"What about the Hibble Group?"

Skinner shook his head. "Nothing."

Mulder lay for a moment, sorting through thoughts that seemed clearer than he'd had in days. The hospital... something about the hospital...

"Sir!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What about the search I left running on any medical records we might have on him?"

Skinner narrowed his eyes slightly. "What records?"

Mulder pulled himself up so that he was reclining--the closest he could get to the pacing he craved. "I thought... I wondered if there might not be a correlation between his medical state and the reason why he held off starting the killings again for so long."

"You think he was hospitalised?"

"Not mental-- _maybe_  mental--but maybe he was sick. Maybe he's sick, and that's why it's taken him so long to start up again." Mulder sat all the way up now, ignoring the pain as his mind kicked in. "We had this guy in ISU, who said that killers  _have_  to kill. They don't have a choice. A serial killer's goal in life is to kill, he said. So  _something_  had to have stopped Craddock from killing for all those years--"

"Mulder..."

"--and if it was a medical problem, then maybe I was wrong. Maybe he  _does_ want to get caught. Maybe he's hoping that we'll have to kill him to catch him--wait--"

"Mulder..."

"Wait! Maybe  _that's_  why he's been goading us. He wants to make us mad enough to kill him, and then--"

"Mulder!"

Mulder looked up, unaware of his own manic state. "Yes, sir?" he asked mildly.

Skinner sighed, well and truly fed up--with the case, with Craddock, and most of all, with his agent. "I'll check on the medical records for you. Meanwhile," he continued, a bit of authority forcing its way into his voice. "I'll have Agent Wilkins bring you the laptop so that you can run any additional searches yourself."

Mulder all but licked his lips in anticipation.

And Skinner shot him down immediately. "That is contingent upon your following doctor's orders to the letter. You are to take whatever medications they tell you to take-- _when_  they tell you. And you are  _not_  to leave this hospital room for any reason."

"But Craddock needs to know--"

"Craddock will know that you're back on the case, Mulder," Skinner broke in. "I'll make sure word gets out."

"And you'll tell me if he sends us  _anything,_ " Mulder nearly pleaded. "Anything could be important--"

Skinner's look alone was enough to stop him cold. "Agent Mulder, I do know my job," he chided mildly. "Just make sure you know yours."

"Yes sir," Mulder replied dully, thoroughly rebuked. Still, he couldn't stop a smile from forming as the AD quit the room.

He was close now. God, he could almost  _see_  it, he was so close.

 _Scully,_  he thought quietly.  _You'll be back before you know it. Just don't get hurt before then. Don't get mad at him. Don't give him an excuse..._

* * *

Scully sat up slowly, watching for Craddock, listening for him with every nerve she had in her. He was gone. For how long, she didn't know, but he was gone.

And now, she could start to help herself.

That screaming part of her had finally won the fight, and she looked for any opportunity now. Battered and bruised, her right hand a growing glut of infection, she could still get out... If he would just stay gone long enough...

He was slipping. As he got more and more angry at the Bureau, he let more things slip. She had an idea now of what was going on out there.

Something had happened to Mulder. She couldn't be sure what--she hadn't seen him since he took the front entrance, and she took the back, at the warehouse... Was it a week ago? Two weeks, maybe?

Anyway, Craddock was furious. It seemed he only wanted to talk to Mulder--she wondered if that wasn't the whole reason he'd begun killing again in the first place. He wanted ISU out here... And he wanted them to suffer.

She stood carefully, still listening for his return, and tested her bonds once again. Too tight to slip through, too strong to break. Whatever she was going to do, she'd have to do it with  _both_  hands tied behind her back.

The door to the storage closet--her cold and very uncomfortable cell--was unsurprisingly locked. So that left the one window in the place. It was set high up in the wall to the left of the door, and she was certain that she was too short to even peek through it.

But, she thought reasonably, there were boxes in the room. Heavy boxes, certainly, but as the one manouvering power she had left was her legs, she supposed she could probably move at least one. If she could climb on top, break the glass, and yell  _real_  loud...

It took her longer than she'd imagined it would to get the box over to the window. Every step she took brought her closer to Craddock's return, and her ears were getting tired listening for him.

Finally, she faced the task of climbing up on the box--fully half her height--and trying to break the window. She clambered up as best she could, settled herself, and peered through--

Just in time to see Craddock returning.

He saw her as well, and he nearly broke her arm pulling her off of the box as he stormed into the room.

"What the fuck are you trying to do!" he screamed, his hand knocking her to the floor as it started her nose bleeding. "You gonna pull a Houdini act and slither out?" Another slap. "How were you gonna do that, huh?" A kick--a burning pain in her stomach as she felt a rib collapse. "What were you gonna do?"

With each outburst came pain--each one a special little pain that added to the whole, until she couldn't breathe... and couldn't give in to obilivion.

She wanted to be there again, suddenly. She wanted to be in that warm dark obilivion where Craddock couldn't touch her, where she didn't have to worry about what happened to her body. No matter how many ribs he might break, how many nails he might pull from her fingers...

Oblivion called...

But she was too angry now to give in. Too angry to let him drive her away from any hope of getting out of here. She was sick of them all, suddenly. Pfaster and Barry and Schnauz and Craddock and Cancerman--

She felt herself being lifted, felt her legs being bound as she tried to kick out at him. He was moving her again. Moving her to yet another cell, and she didn't know how to stop him. She didn't know where her partner was, or if he was trying to find her, or if he had been hurt by this psycho who held her and that was why he  _hadn't_  found her and she suddenly wanted to shoot this man as many times as she possibly could.

But there was a better answer, she thought coldly, as he threw her in the trunk of his car and drove down a far too bumpy road. She would make him pay. She would find  _something_  that would get her out of here, and then, when he thought she was gone, she would come back and kill him. Slowly, painfully-- Hell, she thought with a wheezing grunt, she was a doctor! She knew a hundred ways to kill him slowly. And she'd just go down the list. Maybe, if she was lucky, he'd live until she'd gotten halfway through...

A part of her mind was terrified by these increasingly violent thoughts. It tried to tell her that that wasn't the way she was. But Dana Scully had taken too much pain in the last four years--too much loss--and she was ready to give a little back.

And if Craddock managed to kill  _her_  in the process...?

At least she'd make him pay.

 

 

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> June 20`
> 
> `Scully... I screwed up. Biog time. Skinner's threatened to take this computer away from me and keep me out of the loop permenantly--or at least until I get out of the hospita; again. Which might be tomorrow, if they can stop pojking neeedles in my arms long enough for m to convimce then that I'm fin.`
> 
> `The doctr in charge... Kinney, I think--says that he thinks I just pushed too hard. No blood clots, or aneursm... Just one hell of a headache, and more of that wonderful blurred vision. Oh, and I think I might have sprained my wrist when I fell--I didn't faint, Scully! I  _lost conscousmess._`
> 
> ` I promise I'll run the spellchecker on this when I'm done, Scully. Know how you hate sloppy typing.`
> 
> `This suddenly reminds me of something. Email. Remember when they shut u down? I used to type up my journals--along with a few notes--and email them to you? Like having my own private confessional, where I could tell you all the crzy things that were floating around in my head, and all you could do was cal me later, or email me back... You never could give me that look of yurs.`
> 
> `Skinner's promise me that he'kl let me lknow as sono asCraddock send us abythimg. Shit, see, spellchecker is defintely in order. I hpe youy get back soon. I'm not sur my hand will be up to typihng this reprt.`
> 
> `Anyway, nwo you have to come back. You'd never fprgive yoirself if they shut us down for myu slop[y tyoing. Oaky. Okay. I've been trying to remenber what happened that day at the warehouse. I do, vaguely, renember chasig Craddock through a field. Did he have a gun, Scully? I don't think he did. AT least I don't remeber one. When he saw us, I'm sure I remember that he seemed to recignise me. Thenhe ran. Scully, what is he thinking? You;re there, youi shoudl know. So tell me. Is he feeling like he's got us snowed? Is he fee;ing safe? I bet he is. I bet he thinks that we just walk around in the littke circles he's created for us.`
> 
> `He's right, sort of. But not for long. If I can hust figure out what he's thinking!`

* * *

"Where are they!"

Craddock had stopped hitting her--at least for now--and Scully finally felt her head starting to clear. He stood before her, stopping to glare at her at intervals, while he paced back and forth, muttering half-incoherently.

"They got stupid all of a sudden?" he was saying. "They can't find one stupid stinking killer in a town the size of Butte? It's not New York City, you know, lady? It's not like I could just disappear." He stopped, a look of fury coming over his face. Scully took as deep a breath as her cracked ribs would allow, and waited for the onslaught.

He bent down before, his face coming right up next to hers. "How can I make them find me?"

Scully's brain started to put things together very slowly. Craddock was waiting, but it was a full minute before she spoke a word.

"Why not tell them?" she ventured in a whisper, disgusted by the fear in her own voice. She waited, hoping that this time, he'd simply beat her to death in short order, instead of taking his time about it.

But what he did was sit back on his heels and smile. "Oh, you're good lady," he said happily, almost bouncing to his feet as he started pacing again. "You're good. Okay. Tell them where I am, huh? Good idea.  _Great_  idea. But not by just telling them, right? I mean, killers just don't  _tell_  people where they are..." His pacing became more frenzied. "Yeah... Yeah... See, it's got to be subtle... If I just..."

Scully tried to keep up with him, but she found herself suddenly wondering what had gone wrong in this man. She'd read all the information on the New York murders. He'd been cool, calculating... The man before her seemed too out of control to be the same one that methodically dismembered women and sent the parts to the police as love letters.

What had happened to him? She tried to use logic, tried to diagnose the condition, but her hold on that logic was fleeting, and she barely noticed the downward spiral of her own thoughts. Was it organic? Was it some sort of pathological response to the incidents that took place in New York? What was _wrong_  with this man? He wasn't even really very good at this--well, he'd managed to keep her prisonner for however long he'd kept her prisonner, so he was  _all_  bad. All bad for a killer, of course. Killers were always bad, but--

Any further thoughts were cut short by Craddock, as he got in her face again, pulling out that knife that now made her cringe, and severing the twine around her wrists.

"We're gonna take a picture lady," he gritted, half glee, half fury. "We're going show your friends how pretty you look, and maybe they can come find you, huh?"

Scully shuddered as the madman prattled on, her mind running in circles no less frenzied than his. What if he couldn't make them see where he was? What if he only wanted them to find him so that he could do to them what he'd done to so many others? What if they didn't find him fast enough?

All her former thoughts of killing Craddock were gone now. She just prayed that he wasn't too crazy to botch this. She had no idea where she was, no idea how to get a message out. She was helpless, and in that helplessness lay the seeds of what she could dimly see as her eventual downfall.

Craddock was driving her crazy. And the longer she stayed here, the more likely it was that she would never be sane again.

* * *

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> JUNE 21`
> 
> `Scully, I promise you, when we find you, I'll keep Craddock nice and safe for you. You can use him as target practice when you get out of the hospital. I can't promise he'll be up to playing a moving target, but...`
> 
> `We got the photo. I have a feeling you probably don't even remember it being taken. At least I hope you don't. Scully, I never thought I'd say this, but you look terrible. I don't know if you can tell, but they've got me on a pain-killer that actually lets me think, now. Think, and type. Oh, and the hand's not sprained. It's fine today.`
> 
> `It's the 21st. Craddock sent the picture last night, and, through the wonders of a surprisingly quick mail system in Montana, we got it this morning.`
> 
> `It's a picture of you. Propped up against a crate, with your hands tied behind your back. He actually wrote on this one:`
> 
> `"Hello Boys!"`
> 
> `On second thought, I might  _not_  be able to save him for you Scully. I have a feeling I'm going to try to find out how many bullets the human body can hold--starting with his toes and working up.`
> 
> `I can't see your hands in the picture. Are they okay? My own hurt just looking at you. Somehow this is worse than Gerry was, Scully. Craddock's taking such a long time with this one.`
> 
> `We've closed out the books on every location we can think of. I know you don't believe in psychic transmissions--much--but could you give me a clue?`

 

Scully sat quietly now, trying to ignore the heat coming off of the water pipe she was tied to.

Craddock had been gone for a while, but she didn't really feel any desire to try to escape this time. It was hopeless. He wasn't going to let her go, no matter whether Mulder found those stupid little clues or not. She was trapped. Trapped in this boiler room, trapped in this life...

Again, she tried to pull her thoughts out of the well of depression that kept threatening to claim her. It was too hard, though. She was never going to win. If it wasn't Craddock, it would be someone else. One of these days, she was going to get into one of these helpless situations, and no one would get her out in time.

She heard a door slam somewhere in the building, heard his heavy, manic footsteps coming closer. She bent her head down toward her bound hands, and tried to wipe away a trickle of sweat that was stinging one of the cuts on her face. Let him come, she thought dully. Just let him come and get it over with.

"They're not here yet!"

Craddock's scream wasn't even enough to make her flinch.

"Why aren't they here?"

"Maybe they didn't get your message," she replied coldly, knowing what the response would be. He was in her face again, his breath smelling like rancid food--which only served to remind her that she hadn't eaten since he'd taken her.

"Watch it, lady," he breathed angrily. "I gave them everything they needed to find me! So where the fuck are they?"

"Maybe they're just stupid."

He kicked her--a kick that might have made her scream two weeks before, but which barely elicted a grunt now.

"They're not stupid!" he screamed at her. "They're the fucking FBI! If they were stupid, they'd never have gotten so close to me before. They wouldn't know so much about me."

Scully was not thinking, or she would never have said her next words.

"Maybe they're just stupider than  _you._ "

Craddock bent down, looking her in the eyes with more fury than one human being should have been allowed to hold. He hit her sharply across the face. "I'm not stupid, lady." Hit her again, splitting her lip open. "I'm not stupid!" Again--harder now, so her head rocked back on her shoulders. "I'm not STUPID!"

She had no idea how long he went on, but by the end, she sat huddled in the corner, squeezed into the tiny space between that burning pipe and the wall, her legs drawn up tight, trying to give her lungs and stomach  _some_  protection from the fists and feet that had battered them.

As he stood up, moving away from her finally, Scully found that this kind of pain brought its own oblivion. She welcomed it, finally, sacrificing what little hope she had for sanity, for the blissful nothingness of oblivion...

 

 

> `Field Journal  
> JUNE 22`
> 
> `If that was your clue, Scully, I'm never going to ask you for one again. I had a dream last night. It kind of reminded me of the dreams I had after you finally came and got me out of that box that Conche was keeping me in. Not that I didn't appreciate it, but you did take your time.`
> 
> `Anyway, this time, it was you--and you weren't in a box, you were in a really--almost a  _wet_  room. And Craddock was there. God, Scully, if you're going through what I just dreamed...`
> 
> `You're definitely not going to get Craddock to yourself. I've been needing to put in some practice time on the firing range lately, and those black silouttes with the "Q"s on them are pretty boring targets, aren't they?`
> 
>  
> 
> `I've decided to think like you--just for a little while. A to B to C. Logical. No, don't worry, I haven't finally taken one too many cracks to the head. I just figure that you found all the good clues on this case, so it's time I modified my approach.`
> 
> `And don't get used it, okay? The logical stuff is why you were sent here to begin with. I can only keep it up for so long, then you're going to have to come back and do it yourself.`
> 
> `I downloaded every file I could get my hands on in regards to Craddock--by the way, Danny's waiting on the dinner I promised him with you. He's a nice guy, you know. And not half as gruesome to look at as you seem to think--at least, that's what the girls in the lab told me. Got a lot of little yentas waiting to make Dana Scully a kept woman.`
> 
> `Danny came up with something that might help us. He found a record of a Matthew Walden Craddock who was treated in New Jersey for a burst blood vessel in his brain. Well, not treated really, just diagnosed. If it's the same Craddock, then that explains the change in him. The burst vessel must have caused a severe change in his character.`
> 
> `Obviously not severe enough, though. Would have been nice if it had turned him into something nice and docile--like a Chicago Bulls fan. I'm staring at that picture of you... Your hair's still there, which is a good sign--though I'd have preferred him giving you a haircut to an impromptu manicure...`
> 
> `Scully? I  _can_  see your hands--well, one of them, anyway. Three fingers.`
> 
> `Three fingers?`
> 
> `What does that mean, Scully? It looks like that's deliberate on your part.`
> 
> `What does it mean?`

 

_June 22_

"Mulder?"

Mulder looked up from the email he'd been reading. Pendrell had sent it an hour ago, but he thought they were getting close to finding what he needed.

Willie was standing before him, a strange look on his face that started the older man sweating.

"Yeah," he asked quickly. "What did you find?"

Willie took a deep breath. "We might have found Craddock."

 

> `Okay, Scully, be afraid. Be  _very_  afraid. I just spent the afternoon running that photograph over and over in my head. Oh, you are  _so_  good! I swear, I never saw it, until we ran the thing through the bureau's photo guys. (Pendrell says, hi, by the way. He's pining for you.)`
> 
> `TriState. The moving vans to the northwest. How did you manage to work your hands around to marking the crate like that? I think they'd better move you over to the CIA. You have the brains that spies are made of.`
> 
> `We have teams going to all the shipping sites in Butte right now. You know I know that Craddock would never have left town, right? Thank God for homebodies.`
> 
> `I got Willie to spring me from the hospital again. I have to go back as soon as we find you, but since you look like you're headed for some hospital time yourself...`
> 
> `I'm heading toward the yard out by the airstrip--not the airport, the strip, that little one out north of town?`
> 
> `I hope you're there, Scully.`
> 
> `I'll see you soon.`

 

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Willie just gave him that smile that made him want to punch the guy. "Nope. Regulations. If you can't have a gun, then you can't enter the building."

"And you've been planning this since you let me talk you into taking me along, haven't you?"

Again, Willie smiled.

"Asshole," Mulder muttered, sitting angrily on the front seat as Wilkins formed up his crew.

"Thanks," the young man threw back. "We'll call to you as soon as we know something."

* * *

"They're coming!"

Scully seemed beyond hearing him at this point, but Craddock wasn't really speaking to her anyway, so he prattled on.

"They're coming! I'm good. See? I'm smart. I got them to come. Told you that the right clues would get them to come. And they don't even know I sent them, do they, lady? I bet they think you're the smart one." He kicked her lightly, looking for a response.

That response was instantaneous. Two battered legs shot out from her hiding place in the corner, and she used a trick she'd seen from her brother Bill--a trick he'd used to win one of his endless wrestling matches. She thought it was called a scissor cut--something like that--and as she brought her legs in from both sides of Craddock's form, tripping him up as he stood there, she had the dull pleasure of watching him fall.

The boiler room was a small place, dotted with random pipes and boxes, so it was unsurprising that he would hit one on his way down.

What  _was_  surprising, and gratifying in its own way, was the fact that he managed to hit not only one of the pipes, but the very sharp edge of the fuse box that sat on the wall before him. His shout of shock was short-lived, as he fell heavily, blood seeping from a sizable gash on his forehead.

She almost came out after a moment. She watched him carefully, looking for signs of movement, and began to carefully push her way out of the little hole that she'd made for herself.

And then she heard the footsteps--lots of them. Pfaster and Schnauz and Barry and--

With a small whimper of fear, she pushed back in, trying to make herself invisible behind the pipes.

* * *

Mulder listened carefully to the radio, hanging on every rarely-spoken word.

He should have gone in, regardless of what Willie said. He was going to have a heart attack out here. Surely a little blurred vision  _inside_  the warehouse was better than a massive coronary outside?

"We've got Craddock!"

The words were wonderful, but he was waiting for something else.

"Sweep the place! Scully's got to be somewhere!"

Please...

"...Sir?"

Mulder stopped breathing as he heard Willie's whispered "Oh, God."

It was another moment before he spoke again. "Mulder get in here!"

 

His head was pounding again by the time he reached the boiler room, deep in the bowels of the Tri-State warehouse. He ignored his once-more blurred vision, trying desperately to hold together.

He'd run from the sedan without bothering to bring the radio, hoping that they'd call for an ambulance. Hoping she didn't need one.

But Willie had sounded so...

"Mulder?"

He looked across the room, to where Willie crouched.

"Try to get her to come out of there, can you, Spook?" Willie asked quietly, not wanting to scare the already terrified Scully any more than he had to.

Mulder crouched down beside him, as the other agent made room.

"She wouldn't let me touch her," Willie explained sadly.

Mulder's heart leapt into his throat as he got a look at his partner. She was bleeding--her face, her hands... Every part of her that he could see was covered in bruises or blood. He reached out tentatively.

"Scully?"

He could see that her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to see him.

"Scully, come on," he coaxed gently. "It's okay." He wondered how long it would take for the ambulance to get there. "Come on." He reached into the tiny space, putting one comforting hand on her cheek.

The response terrified him as much as it did her. He'd heard her yell, he'd heard her shout... But never before in their five years together had Fox Mulder heard Dana Scully scream.

It was short-lived, but the sound of it shook the room. And Scully shook with it.

"Scully, it's okay," he whispered gently, feeling rather than watching, as Willie moved to clear the room. "It's Mulder."

Scully reacted slightly to that, and encouraged, Mulder continued.

"Scully, if you're trying to prove to me how much weight you've lost, consider it proven... Come on out, okay?" He pulled back, offering his hand--but keeping a safe distance from her. "Come on, it's all right."

It seemed a lifetime before she finally stuck out her right hand--more bloody than the rest of her--and let him help her out. The ambulance had arrived at some point during the negotiations, and Mulder had a very short distance to keep her upright before she could collapse onto the gurney.

He knelt next to her, as the EMTs looked her over, trying to comfort her. But she was beyond comfort, beyond seeing him...

"She's dehydrated," the EMT was saying quietly. "Hasn't had anything to eat in a while..." The man looked up at Mulder, sympathy in his eyes. "We'll get her to the hospital right away, sir," he assured him quietly. "She's had quite a shock, you know..."

Mulder nodded mutely, standing as Willie put a hand on his shoulder.

"Craddock's out cold," the younger agent said quietly. "She must have knocked him down somehow. Hit his head pretty badly." He looked sidelong at his old friend. "Kind of like someone else I know," he commented with a smile. "Come on, Spook. There won't be enough room for you in the ambulance. I'll drive you back."

 

> `Field Journal of Fox Mulder  
> JUNE 25`
> 
> `I've looked over this whole journal. I hope it didn't make sense to me when I wrote it, because it makes  _no_ sense now, and I'd hate to think that I was that out of it for that long.`
> 
> `I've been out of the hospital for a day now--released, I should say. I've actually spent as much time here since then as I did when I was a patient.`
> 
> `Craddock's being shipped out to the local penitentiary tomorrow. New York and Montana will probably be fighting over jurisdiction for months, but at least he's not going anywhere.`
> 
> `Neither is Scully. At least for a while. I'm worried about her. Not her health--they've got her on an IV, and her ribs and other injuries are healing...`
> 
> `She hasn't really woken up since we found her three days ago. She was sort of conscious yesterday afternoon, and I tried to talk to her, but she just sort of muttered at me--nothing you could understand--and then went back to sleep. She's there. You can see it when she has a bad dream because she seems to want to curl up in a ball and just hide.`
> 
> `I think that's what she's actually doing here. Hiding. God knows  _I_ 'd want to hide after everything that's happened to her in the last couple of weeks. Anyway, they've taken to strapping her down--not a move  _I_  would have chosen, given Craddock's treatment of her. But she's already pulled out two IVs in her attempts to curl up and shrink away, and they're worried about her compromising the NG tube they have for her.`
> 
> `Scully, I hope you wake up soon. You're going to kill me, but I let Skinner order a mandatory psych eval as soon as you're back. You've bounced back from a lot of things in the last few years, but this one seems to be getting to you more than most.`
> 
> `Come out, Scully. Craddock's sitting in the neurology ward, heavily guarded. He can't get anywhere near you, I promise. Just come back so we can talk about this, okay?`
> 
> `Please?`
> 
>  
> 
> **` JUNE 26` **
> 
> `This is to get back at me for Conche, isn't it? Well, let me tell you something. I had  _drugs_  in my system that excused a lot of that reaction. Come back now, and I won't have to use this against you in the future.`
> 
> `I was asked to see Craddock before they shipped him out today. That blood vessel wrought a little too much havok in him. I found out why he was going about this whole game so differently, though. He thought we knew more about him than he did. It's probably true, too. I mean, he knew he liked to kill... He just couldn't remember quite how he used to do it. The rest of us remember all too well.`
> 
> `I'm sitting next to Scully's bed now, like I have been for the past three days, and she seems like she might want to wake up soon. I think I'd better ask the nurses to untie the restraints, because Scully's going to freak when she wakes up, otherwise. I know, I've done it myself. Trust me, tying down someone who's just been through Hell--no matter how benign your reasoning--is probably the worst idea on record.`

* * *

Dana Scully moved her head slightly, moaning at the pain it caused. Her face hurt. She wondered vaguely if she'd been in an accident, but the thought, like all others she'd had in the last few days, was fleeting. Her hand itched really badly. It hurt, too, but she could discount that, because she wasn't sure that there was a place on her body that  _didn't_  hurt. But, man, it itched. She rolled her fingers together painfully for a moment, surprised to find them wrapped in something. And they were swollen, too.

What the hell was going on here?

She became aware, slowly, of voices nearby, and tried to clue in on what they were saying.

A male. "Please? Look, I'll make sure she doesn't hurt herself. Just let me take them off."

A female, authoritarian. "Sir, we're under strict orders. If she pulls out that IV again--"

An IV? Why did they have an IV in her? She tried to move her hands, to find out where the IV was--and found herself strapped down. Her thoughts were suddenly crystal clear.

Oh God! Gerry! He was going to come at her with that icepick of his, and--

Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself not in Gerry Schnauz's trailer, but in a hospital room. Not  _him_ \-- _them!_  They were going to stick those  _things_  in her, plant that chip in her neck again! She struggled, trying to snap the restraints that held her.

The male voice made her jump.

"Scully? It's Mulder. It's okay... It's all right... Scully?"

She fought against the hands that tried to get at her, turning her head away from him violently.

"Nurse!" She heard the man's fear. Good. Let them be afraid. She was going to make as much trouble for them as she could! She felt those hands finally release the straps around her wrists, and reached out to grab the man before her.

"Scully!?"

She knew the voice. She knew it. Who was it? Who was this guy who'd strapped her down and...

Her hands went limp suddenly, releasing the neck they held, as pain engulfed them. Oh, God. Oh God...

"Mulder?"

 

Her voice sounded weak, and Mulder chanced a hand to her forehead. This time, she didn't pull away. "I'm here, Scully," he whispered quietly.

"Craddock?"

His hand started running through her hair. "He's gone... You're safe."

She mumbled slightly, reassured. God, she was tired. She felt like she hadn't slept in weeks. But Mulder was here, and she was safe, and that meant that, for just a little while, she could let him take care of it...

She was too tired to try...

* * *

 

> `Field Journal  
> JUNE 27`
> 
> `Scully's awake now--again. This time she didn't try to kill me, so I guess that's a good sign. We're holding off on the psych eval until she's feeling a little better, but I'm really starting to get worried.`
> 
> `She won't talk to me about what happened the day we found her--she doesn't even remember what happened yesterday. Big surprise, huh? Scully won't talk about it. It should seem normal, but--I don't know. She's usually so apologetic after she loses control. I remember her after that night at Pfaster's. The next day, all she could say was how sorry she was that she'd carried on that way. That's just the way she says it too. "Carried on."`
> 
> `But she's not talking at all now. Just sits there. Nods occassionally. I mean, try to discuss the case report, and she's all yours, but anything else...`
> 
> `I don't know what's going on in her head. She's been through so much in the past few years...`
> 
> `I wonder if she's just had enough...`

* * *

_June 27_

Scully looked out the window, noticing how bright everything looked. Maybe it was the time spent in that boiler room, with that dim little bulb...

 _And the lighting was bad, too,_  she thought with a private grin.

But that slowly faded. She hated what was happening to her. She hated the fact that she should have figured Craddock out before she did. Not that she could have known about the blood vessel in his brain, but she should have been able to figure out how to goad him into making a move.

All she had done was sit there. She looked at her bandaged hand. She didn't even remember him taking the second nail. It had nothing to do with her _physical_  injuries--they'd been after the fact. But he'd driven her a little crazy.

Admit it, Dana, she told herself harshly,  _a lot_  crazy. That she had lost control like that sickened her--

It also drove home the fact that she had a larger problem to deal with here.

What was she going to do about her life? If it continued like this, she'd have two choices: die young, or go insane. She wouldn't die young. Her mother had already had to deal with  _that_  before... And really, was going crazy any more of an option?

So what was she going to do? Leave the Bureau? Move back to Quantico? They amounted to the same thing: leave the X-Files. And she found that that was something she just couldn't do.

She'd thought about it before, after a harrowing case, or when Mulder was once again in the hospital after running off alone. But it was always an anger response, or a fear response.

Well, she was afraid now. She was afraid that, one of these days, she simply wasn't going to be able to get out of a situation like this one. She was going to push someone too far and end up dead. She didn't even have to  _push_  most of them, really. They just did what they did. And what many of the people she pursued did was to kill people.

She thought back to what she had done in that boiler room. It was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Had she been in her right mind, she would never have goaded Craddock like that... It was asking him to kill her.

And the problem was, she had known that when she did it.

So here she was. Safe again--in the hospital, which seemed to have become her second home... And she knew-- _knew_ \--that she was going crazy. Small steps at first; accepting some of Mulder's wilder theories, taking risks she never would have taken before... So when did she get to the point where a psycho like Craddock could actually push her into being suicidal?

She was so deep in thought, that she didn't hear the door open, and Mulder was seated beside her bed before she ever noticed him. She smiled painfully, her face still smarting, though the bruises now felt like they might finally go away, where this morning they had seemed permenant fixtures.

"Hi," she greeted him, her voice sounding slightly nasal from the NG tube they had yet to take out.

"Hi," he replied tentatively. "How you feeling?"

She just smiled slightly.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?"

Mulder just looked at her for a moment, trying to figure out how he was going to say this. "Scully, I think--" He didn't know how to go on with that thought, so he started another. "Look, Scully... If you need to talk, I'm right here."

That brought a genuine smile to her face. "I just need some time, Mulder. I need to think things through."

"You know Skinner's making them do an eval on you?"

Her smile faded. "It's standard procedure."

"Scully--"

"Mulder," she cut him off. "I really--Can we talk about this later?"

He looked at her sidelong, trying to read her thoughts. "I don't know. Can we?"

Her reputation for keeping her mouth closed was really catching up to her, she thought sadly. But this, she  _did_  want to talk about... Someday.

"Just give me a chance to catch my breath, okay?"

"Take your time," he replied quietly. "I'll be here."

She just stared at him for a moment, before something else caught her mind. "Do you think you could bring me my powerbook?" she asked suddenly, not noticing the guilty look on his face. "I want to get some things down for the report while they're still fresh in my mind... Then I can forget them." She smiled slightly. "It'll take some time, and I'm sure my typing is going to stink with one hand, but..."

Mulder stood, trying to wipe the guilt off of his face while he adjusted to the abrupt change in topic. "Sure. Look, I've got to get some work done on this report. I'll be by later with your computer, okay?"

"Okay," she replied, a surprised question in her eyes for his reaction.

"I'll see you later," he muttered, quitting the room quickly.

He continued the muttering after the door closed behind him. "I just have some files to erase, first."

* * *

_The End_


End file.
